Beautifully Noir - Rated 
These books are funny in a League of Gentlemen type way, deeply disturbing, macabre and with a strong vein of tragedy through them all. The quality of the writing is excellent. The creation of a fabulously fictitious world based in our reality is much like Jasper Fforde, but Pryce's work is darker and his style is more sparse and philosophical. Having lived in Lampeter, which gets a mention in the books more than once and knowing the area very well it heightens the comedic aspects more than if you didn't know where these places where and what they are like for real. Having said that, the books are still rich and rewarding within themselves. Louie is a strong character who has that wonderful gumshoe quality which makes him so appealingly retro and it's wonderful to see his father and Sospan again.
Darker - but darkly funny too - Rated 
Unlike the other reviewers below I thought this the funniest of the four by a long way, but, like the story, the humour is darker and rather than dancing in front of you like a showgirl in a stovepipe hat, this time it hits you like lead pipe to the back of the neck.
The prose itself is first rate: taut and economical and for all that this series started out, ostensibly at least, as a pastiche, the plot and conception of Don't Cry for me Aberystwyth is finally revealing this series to be a surrealistic masterpiece.
Don't Laugh For Me Aberystwyth - Rated
When you look at the ingredients of this book - dead Santas, Nazi hunters, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the Welsh Secret Service - you'd be forgiven for assuming it to be a deranged work of bewildering surrealism. Malcolm Pryce, however, has the knack of making the bizarre seem believable - the oddness never hinders the plot and thus you're left with a genuinely gripping and inventive thriller populated with some undeniably unusual yet never ludicrous characters.
Much of the success of this series is down to Pryce's prose which is brilliantly evocative and leaves many better-known writers in the shade. In an ideal world Pryce would be as big as Pratchett.
One niggle - the Louie Knight books are promoted as comedies (the jacket describes this one as "hilarious") but they've never been over-burdened with laughs and, as other reviewers have mentioned, this volume is darker still. A little less introspection and a few more laughs would be nice next time.
Noir Rarebit - Rated
As the other reviewer pointed out, probably the darkest of the four books, but not without great comedy moments. Answers the question of what Welsh hitmen should look like, and worth price of admission for that alone. Confusing from beginning to end, but that is after all the mark of a good noir detective story. Enjoy.
O' little town of Aberystwyth! - Rated 
A Christmas setting for Louie Knight this time, but there's not much "comfort and joy" in Aberystwyth. A man in a Santa Claus suit has been viciously murdered and his body left in a state that wouldn't be out of place in the Da Vinci Code!! I loved its absurdity and fabulously descriptive writing, as I did with the other "Aberystwyth" novels, but I found this one much more reflective, a little darker and to be honest, much sadder, as many more brutal and needless killings occur. Of all four books, I think this one deserves the genre description "noir" the most. Very inventive and joyously ridiculous in parts, but not as many laughs this time, and some unfinished business - is the pin still in Mrs Llantrisant's photo?
|
